Separation Anxiety
by babybrothalova
Summary: Charlie deals with his abandonment issues.


**Separation Anxiety **(Part 1/5)

Author: babybrothalova

Characters: Charlie (Jack/Rose/Locke)

Rated: R

Circa: "The Moth"

Warnings: Drug Use, Violence, Language

Disclaimer: Characters by LOST and J.J. Abrams

Summary: AU. Charlie comes to terms with his abandonment issues

A/N: Dedicated to pacejunkie for all her support

He's about to die.

_Charlie Pace: twenty-five, son and baby brother (most likely sans 'beloved' precession), bassist of Driveshaft, heroin addict. Swallowed and shat out by a boar. _

The thought of his own pathetic eulogy turns his stomach almost as much as the probability that no one will remember him at all. Assuming that the rescue boats _will_ eventually come, his body, or whatever's left of it, will remain strewn across the jungle floor, hidden by the foliage to rot for all eternity.

The boar is scraping the ground with its hoof, snorting, huffing, and obviously ready to charge, gore, and claim an early dinner. On the menu this evening: '_Bloody Rock God'_, literally. He had referred to himself as such just this morning during a temper-tantrum he threw while accusing everyone of treating him like a child.

Contemplation of his imminent demise is interrupted by the notion of running, but he's frozen in place, rooted to the ground despite the adrenaline coursing through what's left of his abused vascular system.

His heart is thudding with such ferocity that his vision quakes with every beat, and hyperventilation expends every ounce of exertion he could possibly muster in order to flee, were he not afflicted with paralysis.

Apparently, the boar has no problem moving.

It takes off, heading straight for him, hooves thundering against the dirt, the distance between the predator, and him—the helpless prey, closing rapidly.

His instincts urge him move as the creature lunges at him, but his reflexes seem to have gone MIA.

He draws a sharp breath and his eyes screw shut, muscles tense as he hunches into himself, anticipating the carnivorous attack. The sounds of blood-curdling squeals fill the air, as he hits the ground.

After several breaths, he realizes that the anticipated pain has yet to come, and he cracks his eyelids, flinching at the movement in front of him.

The boar is squirming within the confines of a net dangling several feet off the ground, and in its agitated struggle for freedom, kicks out, almost striking Charlie in the process.

Despite reprieve from certain death, something tells him not to count his blessings just yet. He's experienced too much bad luck as of late to trust the strength of the net to hold against the thrashing animal for too much longer. He knows he should scoot back, drag himself out from underneath the writhing swine, but it's futile—he's utterly spent.

The adrenaline rush, after six days of staving off withdrawal and five nights of piss-poor sleep, whilst strung out on four day's worth of heroin, has rendered him useless, and all he can do is lie there and pant.

"Got him!"

Charlie's head snaps in the direction of the voice, scanning the thicket for visual evidence of a human being. He hears the tell-tale sound of a biped, leaves crunching underfoot, and feels a rush of relief as Locke appears from behind a tree, wrapping the gargantuan trunk with rope and then deftly coiling the excess around one hand.

_Thank Fuck._

Air rushes from Charlie's lungs, and he's drawing another breath before he knows what he's about. He pushes himself up to sit, and brushes the dirt from his elbows as Locke approaches and surveys the still-wriggling boar.

As Charlie's senses come back to him, he realizes that his trousers are wet. He's pissed himself, then. _So much for fight or flight_, he thinks.

"It'll be nice to have a warm dinner tonight." Locke says, and he's obviously chuffed with himself, beaming at his trophy.

Charlie nods half-listening, his mind awash with potent fear and vast relief. After a beat, the mental clouds dissipate enough for him to realize that Locke is looking at him, and he suddenly hopes his sodden jeans aren't too conspicuous, only it's too late. Locke's eyes flick down and his smile turns to a grimace.

_Bloody Hell_. _If there is a Hell_.

Despite what he learned in Catholic school, he doubts all those stories about fiery brimstone, because if there _is_ such a place as Hell, he's in it, and any God he'd ever believed in, turned His back on him a long time ago.

Funny, it seems that pattern is becoming more evident with every new person that walks into his life.

A few additional emotions well up then, as if he needed more to deal with. _Brilliant._

He thinks that if only feelings were physiologically beneficial, as each of the food groups are nutritious, he'd be the fittest bloke on the planet, but he's not fit in _any_ sense.

His mum used to work with people like him.

As a file clerk at a mental hospital, she worked with all kinds of emotionally challenged people. Sometimes, she'd bring home extra paraphernalia for him to play with—like poster tubes that served for Lightsabers—when there just wasn't enough money to afford extravagances.

On one occasion, when he was seven years old, she'd brought home a magnet with dozens of silly faces on it, and a magnetized square that framed one at a time. She'd stuck it on the icebox, and when Charlie didn't feel like talking, his mum would ask him to frame the face he felt most like.

A good deal of the time, it was the sick face. The eyes were x's and the tongue stuck out the side of the cartoon-man's mouth. Between intermittent allergies, frequent illnesses and perpetual bullying at school, the sick man bore a permanent frame around him, where the constant movement of the magnet-frame to and from the caricature had etched some of the white background off over time.

He remembers framing the happy face on a few memorable occasions, one being the Christmas he received a piano.

After coming home from primary school with a black eye one day, he vacillated between the scared and angry faces, but as Liam had teased him relentlessly the week before about acting like a big girl's blouse, the angry man won out.

He never thought to frame the sad face, regardless of how he felt. Tears were for babies and ponces. He'd learned that the hard way—the day he lost his blanket. It was the same day his father lost his job.

His recollection is interrupted by a firm voice. "Come on," Locke says, and extends his hand to him. Charlie takes it and pulls himself up, willing his shaking legs and weak muscles to cooperate.

"You know, Charlie, you couldn't have done a better job if you tried." Locke chuckles as he draws his knife from the sheathing of his belt and turns towards the boar.

He's clutching a handful of flesh at the boar's scruff, poised to run his knife through its throat, when it dawns on Charlie that he was set up to act as bait.

"And here all this time, I thought I was useless," he bites out. He just about tastes the venom in his mouth, but his voice betrays him, and comes out sounding closer to injured than annoyed.

Locke halts and looks at Charlie, as if awaiting further explanation. The boar's stay of execution is, by extension, a mercy on Charlie's weak stomach, but now he's forced to deal with Locke's attention turned on _him_.

Locke's mouth is contorted into something that looks more like a frown than a smile, and Charlie feels like a reject, not for the first time in his life, under the scrutiny of Locke's squinting eyes.

Charlie brushes off the seat of his pants, knowing full-well how futile it is when the fronts of them are in much worse shape, but he does it anyway as a diversion to obscure the flush he knows is coloring his cheeks, and the daggers he feels jutting from his eyes.

He knows Locke's still staring at him, and he thinks he can actually feel the man's gaze boring into the top of his head like a crown of thorns.

"Is everything alright, Charlie?" Locke asks, and Charlie feels an odd sort of flip in his stomach.

There's something foreign in the tone of Locke's voice. It sounds like genuine concern, but Charlie dismisses it, cynical of Locke's authenticity, bent on perpetuating his own anger so for once he can retain it long enough to build the fortitude to stand up for himself.

"I'm fine. Fan-_bloody_-tastic," he spits out.

Beneath the anger, though, something aches. Like there's something rubbing perilously close to a tender yet neglected place inside of him. It's like feeling a phantom limb years after amputation, and it's all a bit too much, but he refuses to let it show—least of all, in front of Locke.

When Charlie finally looks up to gauge Locke, he expects to see an indication of disgust or exasperation, but there's nothing in the man's face that suggests either.

What's more disconcerting, Charlie thinks, is that his anger has diminished, and he feels the threat of tears gathering behind his eyes.

"I'm just going to … go," he says, as he whips round and stalks off through the thick patch of trees, aiming to go as far as his feet will carry him.

He soon learns it isn't far.

The sweltering heat of the jungle and the recent brush with death have taken it right out of him; those things and a pesky little heroin habit, of course.

It's only been half a day since he's fixed, and there's already a cold sweat coating his back.

As he traipses through the foliage, he thinks about how much more aggressive his dependency on the drug has become, going from an occasional party favor, to a full-on, outright necessity. It's become a monster bigger than he has the capability or means to battle on his own, and every day, he feels the snowball growing bigger.

If asked to come clean about his habit, so to speak, he'd say that he _intends _to quit, has even _tried_, but every time he's given it a go, something has popped up and hindered his plans. He'd say that he's only been delaying withdrawal for a more convenient time and place, but now that he has all the time in the world to de-tox in a free and private resort-like setting, he still feels uneasy. He knows he should find relief in the fact that he's stranded far away from a land of pushers and gear, but the thought is claustrophobic.

He's crept within the parameters of abstinence twice before, once due to a lack of funds, and once because he tried to kick the junk in earnest. Whether the physical pain or the relentless need was harder to endure, he couldn't say, but the experience was worse than any punishment that the law or the strictest of Nuns could inflict. Needless to say, sobriety didn't stick either time.

This is it, though. He's approaching the point of no return, just this side of inescapable pain, and there's no avoiding it. No back-up fix in case it gets _that_ bad. No Tommy down the way to hook him up until he can go on the take to pay him back. Not this time.

It's a good thing he's got enough horsepower left for one more fix. It's not enough to send him to a five-star retreat, but it's sufficient for the sake of indulgency. Just this one last hit and he'll quit. "_Let's hit it and quit!"_ the James Brown in his head seems to subscribe, and it's all the encouragement he needs. _Later_. He'll deal with sobriety later. It's become a mantra of sorts, but this time, it's a fact, not an option, and the thought of that sends shivers down his spine—on second thought, that's just his body reminding him that it's time for his medicine.

He rounds a familiar grouping of banana plants, dragging himself more than walking back to 'his' area of the caves, grateful that it's not only secluded, tucked behind a boulder, but near.

Dropping to his knees upon his makeshift bed of airline cushions and blankets, he fishes for the cellophane-ensconced treasure in his jeans pocket. He wants to tear at it, to rip the bag apart in haste as withdrawal kicks in, pillaging his body for scraps. He wants to quell its greed, but not at the expense of spilling the prize. Instead, he unties and unravels the bag, cradling it within one palm as the shaking fingers of the other dip inside.

It burns—it always does, and his eyes tear up, but he's not sure if that's because his nasal passage is corroding, or because there's nothing left to snort. He's sad then, in an instant, and then mad. A life's worth of unresolved frustration and pain taunts him on the other side, and he tastes the acridity of it all as the chemical runs down his throat.

Within moments though, the feelings ebb. The flood of opiates washes away his cares, as he sinks back onto his haunches. His chin sags to his chest and his limp arms fall to his side, the depleted bag of numbness fluttering to the ground.


End file.
